Most of the time I'm sedentary it's because my job has me sit at a desk typing code(or slashdot comments) all day. This is exacerbated for most people, because they attach an hour or more of sedentary driving onto each end.

And being sedentary is mentally exhausting compared to light exercise. It's no surprise that there's an obesity epidemic.

I wear a FitBit, and was really surprised at how much more active I am on a day off than at work. I hit my activity goals without even trying. We should be taking breaks to do a lot of walking during the work day. Our employers will benefit from this by having healthier employees.

it is by the fear of unemployment, alone, I set my car in motion,it is by the java IDE that programs aquire bugs,the mouse exhibits clicking,the clicking responds to warnings.it is by the fear of unemployment, alone, that I set my car in motion.

I haven't seen any interest. I've only ever seen one standing desk and that was because someone had a back problem, not an exercise thing. I've never seen a treadmill at a workstation. I haven't heard of anyone wanting one either. So no, I don't think there's ANY interest from anybody other than the people selling them.

This happened at my previous job, it was about a quarter-mile walk to get to the coffee in the cafeteria (no free coffee). The bathrooms over there were also much cleaner since they were more inconvenient to reach, (so of course I took the extra walk for a cleaner toilet). Took about 10 minutes to walk there and back. It adds up over the course of the day.

Most of the time I'm sedentary it's because my job has me sit at a desk typing code(or slashdot comments) all day. This is exacerbated for most people, because they attach an hour or more of sedentary driving onto each end.

And being sedentary is mentally exhausting compared to light exercise. It's no surprise that there's an obesity epidemic.

Your point is right, but to be correct "most people" spend 25 minutes driving on either end of their day. Hourlong commutes might be common for drivers in big cities but are the exception nationally.

If you're not used to exercising, your tissues aren't as elastic as they should be for typical workouts, especially in a gym setting where peer pressure encourages pushing limits. Pain is your body's warning that you've gotten a bit too close to those limits. With pain reliever, you don't get that early warning, so the first indication you have that something's wrong is a torn muscle or immobility the next day. After that, you'll need time to recover, allowing other nearby muscles to weaken again.

While that is sound, technically true advice, in the real world it just doesn't work. Work is called work for a reason. It is hard, painful, and tiring. The saying is "no pain no gain" and it simply couldn't be more true. We want it easy. We want a magic pill that just makes the weight drop off but for now that just won't happen. You have to get off your ass and work until you can't go any more. And then you get up and go do it again tomorrow. I know. I've been a rock hard manly man when I was in t

Honest question: Do NSAIDs reduce actual, long term growth in muscle, production of new muscle tissue, etc., or do they just reduce the swelling that gives you that “pumped” look after a hard workout without actually affecting growth and development? (Or as follow-on, is the “pumped” thing more than just appearance & the swelling is what actually stimulates muscle growth?)

Looking pumped is nice, but if it’s just aesthetic, not hurting is nice too. If it’s a hindera

Here's an interesting page with a small study(search for "McMaster" of a group of 11 subjects that seems to indicate massage is very useful (even better than exercise?) - Weird! Also it has a note on ibuprofen and NSAIDs.

Please define processed food, then please tell us why it is bad. Be specific.

Processed food is fucking good for you. The majority of western civilization would be fucked without processed food. Everything from pasteurized milk to enriched/fortified bread to iodized salt to canned goods are "processed" in order to increase safety, bolster nutrition because people can't feed themselves, and extend shelf life. Just cooking food is processing it. If you don't like "processed food" you should be eating all

Processed foods often contain high levels of salt, sugar (or HFCS) and white flour or cornstarch because this stuff is cheap. Processed food will keep you alive but is unbalanced nourishment.

You've missed the point entirely. "Processed food" is a useless phrase. Virtually all food that is safe to eat is processed. Being against "processed foods" is like being against "chemicals".

Beyond that, anything can contain high levels of salt, sugar, high fructose corn syrup, etc., and none of those ingredients are bad for you. The truth of the matter is that most people would have far more health problems if they didn't consume "processed foods". Iodized salt is essential to people not having iodine

When most people say processed food, they mean engineered food. Processed/engineered food is (generally) good for civilization - it lasts long enough to be distributed, can be grown efficiently, etc. It's not generally good for the individual, compared to other things. There's considerable evidence that hunter-gatherers, eating minimally processed food (cooked, sometimes, but that's it) were individually considerably healthier than those in agrarian societies where food was more heavily processed. Moder

How can a whole population have a shitty health level when comprised of individuals that are "considerably healthier" and conversely how can one have individual shitty health levels but the population as a whole is healthier? You're speaking in general terms and generally speaking the numbers don't make sense. You'll have to clarify.

Hunter gatherers had collectively quite good health. The story of poor, starving, malnourished hunter gatherers discovering agriculture and turning into gods has been largely discredited. For example, hunter gatherers were taller on average than all but the most modern agricultural humans.

A population can have collectively poor health if a large part of it is starving. Without industrialized agriculture our society would be composed of some rich individuals who might be healthier on average, and a very la

A colleague of mine ( who has an animal nickname BTW, we call him "Bokito", you may wanna google that ) has a great poster on his whiteboard, with a picture of a treadmill on it: "This is what a career ladder looks like". 'Nuf said.

I knew someone who had a hamster that would climb on to the outside of the wheel, kind of wedge itself between the wheel and cage and then spend ages using the wheel from the outside. It was also a remarkably stupid animal. Unlike ever other captive rodent I've seen it never figured out how to walk on the bars of the upper floors of the cage without its feet falling through the gaps. And unlike most other hamsters it was not a very clean animal either.

Sometimes the wheel would get moved. In which case there was no cage wall nearby for it to wedge itself against. In that case it would get to the top then the wheel would start to rotatetaking the hapless rodent with it and it would get splatted off onto the floor which was pretty funny.

There was a pet shop - I think this was in the North East of England but I cannot remember why I would have been in a pet shop so maybe not - that had a cage of chipmunks.

Two of them (always the same two) would get onto a wheel side by side and then run like mad.

One was slightly faster/had more stamina than the other one and eventually the other one couldn't keep up at which point it just held on and got a ride "over the top". The wheel would then come to a standstill and then they'd start all over again.

It seems a stretch to jump from "wild mice run in a treadmill" to "mice like to exercise".What if the treadmill is similiar to what laser pointers are to cats or video games are to humans?It could be that the mice thinks it's accomplishing something or has some other reason thatit uses the treadmill other than because it likes to exercise.

Not sure they are claiming that a desire to exercise is the motive so much that it's the end result of the activity - the wording could definitely be clearer on that point. Presumably the creatures are getting something out it it (unless they get stuck on the wheel and don't realise what's going on, which seems likely in some cases). Jumping to the conclusion it's out of a desire to exercise is definitely a stretch though; as you note, it could just as easily be some kind of game like a dog chasing its ta

I thought so too, but the authors seem to think it was voluntary:"Some animals seem to use the wheel unintentionally, but mice and some shrews, rats and frogs were seen to leave the wheel and then enter it again within minutes in order to continue wheel running."

Also, they typically ran for less than a minute rather than running to exhaustion, and the running times were similar to lab rats' running.It's too bad we can't just ask them. I've always wondered what my dogs and two-year olds were thinking.

hey may have been brought into the wheel because of curiosity, and are trying to escape by running away.

Saw a short video related to this last night.

The mouse in question came up to the thing, climbed on, ran as fast as its little legs would carry it for a few seconds, till it was about 40 degrees from vertical...then stopped and let the thing carry him back and forth till to halted.

Then he got off, took a few steps, turned around, and repeated the whole process.

Personally, I think they were doing it for the fun factor - "Hey, guys! Watch this!"....

go with the old trapdoor method, As soon as he gets in the wheel and it starts moving it knocks the stick out thats holding the lid and slams shut. Not only do you not harm the mouse, but you get to watch it run and run and run!

Maybe they aren't exercising.. perhaps they are climbing in to investigate what it is, start to walk/run and just can't get out as they don't yet understand it? I'd buy that more than an animal exercising because it wants to. Sure animals can be very smart.. but I don't see them being vain as some humans, or worried about their figure.

Maybe they aren't exercising.. perhaps they are climbing in to investigate what it is, start to walk/run and just can't get out as they don't yet understand it? I'd buy that more than an animal exercising because it wants to. Sure animals can be very smart.. but I don't see them being vain as some humans, or worried about their figure.

Most animals, mammals anyway, enjoy playing. I think you're right that it's not random physical activity they are after, but rather it's a fun, playful activity, and that's why they are drawn to do it. I can't buy that they don't understand it - rodents are much smarter than people give them credit for.

The squirrels in my back yard really love the bird feeders I put out, which was no big deal until they got greedy with it. They knocked it off the deck and then figured out how to unscrew the feeder from

Mice are merely the protrusion into our dimension of hyper-intelligent pan-dimensional beings who, unbeknownst to the human race, are the most intelligent species on the planet Earth. They spent a lot of their time in laboratories running complex experiments on humans.

And as a video gaming nerd, I can tell you that Mario will jump way further if you flip the controller in the direction you want him to jump. You can even get them to fly further if you hover the controller at the top of the swing before landing him.

This wheel produced a constant stream of wildlife. Based on 200 000 animals, over 3 years, that works out to 7 animals an hour, or one every 8 minutes and 30 seconds, assuming it is in use 24 hours a day.

So why don't exterminators use a wheel to get rid of mice infestations? Create a box, which has a upper container for the wheel, when the wheel does a full rotation, the wheel floor drops away dropping the mouse into a lower level. Which can then be removed with the trapped mice.

In a way i can totally relate to this - i'm a fairly high-level bike racer, and if i don't ride for 2-3 days, i find i start to get moody and restless, and it's *always* cured by getting out and getting my heart going a bit. Even a walk will make the difference. I wasn't active as a kid, only really started in my 20's, but ever since i started, i need to keep active to keep in a good headspace...and i know of several other riders who say the same thing. Their partners actually tell them to get out and ride because they get in a state when they're inactive. Maybe in a way other species are responding to some kind of natural need to keep active....?

Interesting thought...but am i an addict, or is this a state i should be experiencing regularly? (IE: being active?)

In my youth, i was prone to mood swings, and more extreme emotional states..people now often comment on how level-headed i am...maybe it's because i wasn't burning the calories and being as active as i should have been.

This is stupid. The bottom line here is electronic devices are pretty uncommon in nature. Human brains didn't evolve to deal with random tech-toys being around. If cell-phones were part of their environment on an evolutionary timescale, the ones who wasted energy playing on facebook would've lost out to the ones who got on with the business of finding food and mating. What's happening here is you're introducing a novel element into their world that their evolutionary "psychology" isn't equipped to handle. We have no idea what's really happening in their tiny brains while surfing on that phone, but most likely neural circuits that developed for other, functional reasons are simply being tricked by the novel situation and don't know how to handle it in a manner that's more useful.